"Cuirass" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... regiment of lesser idols, began to grow an eyesore in the scanty studio of my friend. Dijon and I have sat by the hour, and gazed upon that company of images. The severe, the frisky, the classical, the Louis Quinze, were there—from Joan of Arc in her soldierly cuirass, to Leda with the swan; nay!—and God forgive me for a man that knew better!—the humorous was represented also. We sat and gazed, I say; we criticised, we turned them hither and thither; even upon the closest inspection they looked ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... present unoccupied. They could hear now the shouts of the combatants without, the loud orders given by the leaders on the walls, the crack, as the stones hurled by the mangonels struck the walls, and the ring of steel as the arrows struck against steel cap and cuirass. ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... said, then shook the ponderous lance, and flung; On his broad shield the sounding weapon rung, Pierced the tough orb, and in his cuirass hung, "He bleeds! the pride of Greece! (the boaster cries,) Our triumph now, the mighty warrior lies!" "Mistaken vaunter! (Diomed replied;) Thy dart has erred, and now my spear be tried; Ye 'scape not both; one, headlong from his car, With hostile ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... the invention of guns, the English archers are spoken of as excelling those of all other nations; and an ancient writer affirms that an English arrow, with a little wax upon its point, would pass through any ordinary corselet or cuirass. It is uncertain how far the archers with the long-bow could send an arrow; but the cross-bowmen could shoot their quarrels to the distance of forty rods, or the eighth part of a mile. For a more general and extended notice ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... he looked, he wondered at a nation that clothed its troops in a colour that furnished such a fearfully distinct mark to the enemy. A French army, moving, cannot conceal itself; the red of trousers and caps, the mirror-like reflections of cuirass and casque and lance-tip, advertise the presence of French troops so persistently that an enemy need never fear any open ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... a score in the place—Rappahannock farmers, a lean, watchful breed, each man with his musket. One of them, I mind, wore a rusty cuirass of chain armour, which must have been one of those sent out by the King in the first days of the dominion. They gave me a drink of rum and water, and in a little I had got over my worst weariness and ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... his followers' trumpets down in the open square of the barbarous city, where the soldiers of many an Old-World fight, "with mustached lip and bearded chin, with arquebuse and glittering halberd, helmet, and cuirass," moved among the plumed and painted savages; then he lifted Jacques Cartier's eyes, and looked out upon the magnificent landscape. "East, wept, and north, the mantling forest was over all, and the broad blue ribbon of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... sir, do you think that he who has taught you that English coldness, under the veil of which men of worth would conceal their feelings, was not aware of the transparency which belongs to this cuirass of pride? Try concealment with others, but not with me. Dissimulation is more than a blunder, for in friendship a blunder is ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... Balisarda's lightest blows, Nor helm, nor shield, nor cuirass could avail, Nor strongly ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... the circumstances. Besides it so happened that the Lord Bishop, allied with the Guelphs of Pisa against the Ghibellines of Florence, was at that moment waging war with such right good will that for a whole month he had not so much as unbuckled his cuirass. And that is why, without saying a word to anyone, Fra Mino made profound researches on the tomb of San Satiro and the Chapel containing it. Deeply versed in the knowledge of books, he investigated many texts, both ancient and modern; yet found no glimmer of enlightenment in ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... skins, in velvet and ermine—men wearing doublet, jack-coat, pourpoint; men in turban and caftan, men covered with mail of all kinds—armour of leather, of fibre, of lacquer, of quilted silk, of linked steel, Milanaise, iron cuirass; the emblazoned panoply of the Mongol paladins; Timour Melek's greaves of virgin gold; men of all nations and of all ages who fashioned or executed human law, from Moses to Caesar, from Mohammed to ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... the violent Glem; And in the four loud battles by the shore Of Duglas; that on Bassa; then the war That thundered in and out the gloomy skirts Of Celidon the forest; and again By castle Gurnion, where the glorious King Had on his cuirass worn our Lady's Head, Carved of one emerald centered in a sun Of silver rays, that lightened as he breathed; And at Caerleon had he helped his lord, When the strong neighings of the wild white Horse ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... me. If I may walk beside you, sir, after this good woman has fetched me the rose— thank you, madam—and provided me with a pin from the chevaux de frise in her bodice—and again, madam, I thank you: you wear the very cuirass of matronly virtue—I should enjoy, sir, to tell you my history. It is a ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... that mode of locomotion, for he allowed himself to be pulled all the way to the hall-door, and into the glow of the great beech-wood fire; a ruddy light which shone upon many a sporting trophy, and reflected itself on many a gleaming pike and cuirass, belonging to days of old, when gentlemanly sport for ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... brass men come from the sea, and those sprung from the earth were soldiers who assisted Psammeticus and Cadmus in carrying out their objects. Bochart's conjecture is strengthened by the fact, that Cadmus was either the inventor of the cuirass and javelin, or the first that brought them into Greece. Without inquiring further into the subject, we may conclude, that the men sprung from the earth, or the dragon's teeth which were sown, were the people of the country, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... "You see that double twinkle? That means they have helmet as well as cuirass. It's the Royals, or the Enniskillens, or the Household. You can hear their cymbals and kettles. The French heavies are too good for us. They have ten to our one, and good men too. You've got to shoot at their faces or else at their horses. Mind you that when you see them coming, or else ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... which Gautier tells how he went to the tailor to arrange for the most spectacular feature of his costume is lively and amusing. He spread out the magnificent piece of cherry-colored satin, and then unfolded his design for a 'pour-point,' like a 'Milan cuirass.' Says Gautier, using always his quaint editorial we, 'It has been said that we know a great many words, but we don't know words enough to express the astonishment of our tailor when we lay before him our plan for a waistcoat.' The man of shears had doubts ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... Lethe, in the stern and warlike chatelaine of Canossa. Unfortunately we know but little of Matilda's personal appearance. Her health was not strong; and it is said to have been weakened, especially in her last illness, by ascetic observances. Yet she headed her own troops, armed with sword and cuirass, avoiding neither peril nor fatigue in the quarrels of her master Gregory. Up to the year 1622 two strong suits of mail were preserved at Quattro Castelli, which were said to have been worn by her in battle, and which were afterwards sold on ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... in upon their innocent joys. Wallace threw aside the wedding garment for the cuirass and the sword. But he was not permitted long to use either-Scotland submitted to her enemies; and he had no alternative but to bow to her oppressors, or to become an exile from man, amid the ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... mortal eyes have seldom seen. A hundred and fifty thousand men were marshaled on the plain. It was the morning of the 8th of September, 1380. Thousands of banners fluttered in the breeze. The polished armor of the cavaliers, cuirass, spear and helmet, glittered in the rays of the sun. Seventy-five thousand steeds, gorgeously caparisoned, were neighing and prancing over the verdant savanna. The soldiers, according to their custom, shouted the prayer, which rose like the roar ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... Don Quixote de la U.V.M., Knight of the patent-leather gaiters, terrible in his bright rectangular cuirass of tin (once a tea-chest), and his glittering harpoon; his doughty squire, Sancho Panza; and a dashing young lady, whose tasteful riding-dress of black cambric, wealth of embroidered skirts and undersleeves, and bold riding, ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... hands were scarred and callous. When in the palace, his passion for violent exercise drove him to the forge, where for three or four hours he would work without intermission, with a ponderous hammer fashioning a cuirass or some other piece of armor, and exhibiting more pride in being able to tire out his gentle competitors, than in more royal accomplishments.[1230] We have no means of tracing accurately the influence ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... soldiers who wear the cuirass, a piece of defensive armour, covering the body from the neck ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... breeches, unbuttoned at the knees to show his white stockings; bottinas of deer skin; a round-crowned Andalusian hat, and his hair cued. On the pommel of his saddle, he carries balanced a long musket, with fox skin round the lock. He is cased in a cuirass of double-fold deer skin, and carries a bull's hide shield; he is forked in a Moorish saddle, high before and behind; his feet are thrust into wooden box stirrups, of Moorish fashion, and a tremendous pair of iron spurs, fastened by chains, jingle at his heels. Thus equipped, and suitably ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... plank table, placed about the middle of the floor, was a powerfully built man, of almost colossal stature—his military accoutrements, cuirass and rich regimental clothes, soiled, deranged, and spattered with recent hard travel; the flowing wig, surmounted by the cocked hat and plume, still rested upon his head. On the table lay his sword-belt with its appendage, and a pair of long holster pistols, some papers, and pen and ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... other spoils of war found on the spot, were offered for sale by some boys and eagerly bought up as relics. My brother-in-law made a purchase of a helmet, sword and cuirass, intending to hang it up in his hall. For my part I have seen, and can see no reason whatever to rejoice at this event. I fear it is ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... All that is past; to-day no bugle sounds the charge, and even the company commander's whistle has given way to certain soft words for which the German mocking-bird will seek in vain in our Infantry Manual. As for cuirass and helmet, the range of modern guns and rifles has made them a little too ingenuous. And, sure enough, as we drove into Compiegne we found a squadron of dragoons as sombre as our own, in their mouse-coloured couvre-casques and cavalry cloaks, though their ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... leaving home to go to business on a damp or wet morning is a very elaborate affair. He puts on wash-leather socks over his stockings, and India-rubber shoes above his boots, and wears under his waistcoat a cuirass of hare-skin. Besides these precautions, he winds a thick shawl round his throat, and blocks up his mouth with a large silk handkerchief. Thus accoutred, and furnished besides with a great-coat and umbrella, he braves ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... countryside with a curious, fanciful, interesting boy, and we came to a little church off the track in a tiny churchyard full of high-seeded grasses. On the wall of the chancel hung an old trophy of armour, a helmet and a cuirass, black with age. The boy climbed quickly up upon the choir-stalls, took the helmet down, enclosed his own curly head in it, and then knelt down suddenly on the altar-step; after which he replaced the helmet again on its nail. "What put it into your ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... augment the fray, Wheeled full against their staggering flanks, The English horsemen's foaming ranks Forced their resistless way. Then to the musket-knell succeeds The clash of swords—the neigh of steeds - As plies the smith his clanging trade, Against the cuirass rang the blade; And while amid their close array The well-served cannon rent their way, And while amid their scattered band Raged the fierce rider's bloody brand, Recoiled in common rout and fear, Lancer and guard and cuirassier, Horsemen and foot,—a ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... as an excellent sign-post to the inns in Germany, was the true church militant: and his figure was exhibited according to the popular fancy. His head was half mitre and half helmet; a crosier in one hand and a sabre in the other; half a rochet and half a cuirass: he was made performing mass as a dragoon on horseback, and giving out the charge when he ought the Ite, missa est! He was called the converter! and the "Bishop of Munster" became popular as a sign-post in German towns; ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... armor are two correlatives, never to be considered apart. The progress in offensive and defensive improvements keeps the balance of fighting humanity pretty nearly even thus far; as in the development of a young lobster the claws and cuirass grow simultaneously. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... shield Duke Samson rode— With blazon of flowers and gold it glowed; But nor shield nor cuirass availed to save, When through heart and lungs the lance he drave. Dead lies he, weep him who list or no. The Archbishop said, ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... begin; the horses fall into line. Tall plumes fixed between their ears sway in the wind like trees; and in their leaps they shake the chariots in the form of shells, driven by coachmen wearing a kind of many-coloured cuirass with sleeves narrow at the wrists and wide in the arms, with legs uncovered, full beard, and hair shaven above the forehead after the fashion of ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... the neck is almost the only part in which they can be wounded. They have another kind of corslet, made like the corsets of our ladies, of splinters of hard wood interlaced with nettle twine. The warrior who wears this cuirass does not use the tunic of elk-skin; he is consequently less protected, but a great deal more free; the said tunic being ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... taken the place of another tribune, that he might bear his brother company. They had caroused through half the night, and had begun the new day by a visit to the flower market, for love of the pretty saleswomen. Each had a half-opened rose stuck in between his cuirass and shirt of mail on the left breast, plucked, as the charming Daphnion had assured them, from a bush which had been introduced from Persia only the year before. The brothers, at any rate, had never ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... ships of war. And it will be a lesson, a proper lesson for those misguided people who dare expose themselves to the fire of a British broadside and the attack of our torpedo and submarine boats. Let the steel plating of the vessels be as it will, the best cuirass of Great Britain is the firm, true ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... and after an ascent of a quarter of an hour emerged upon a fine open lawn in front of a large house with lights gleaming in the windows. The ripple of the Drina was no longer audible, but we saw it at some distance below us, like a cuirass of polished steel. As we entered the inclosure we found the house in a bustle. The captain, a tall strong corpulent man of about forty years of age, came forward ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... indicative of their personal appearance: on their heads they wore yellow turbans, like coronets; their demeanor was grave and firm; their hair, like that of women, was suffered to grow uncut; they were defended by the cuirass or breast-plate; and in rushing to battle, their onset was like that of ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... cocoa-nuts, and very beautifully coloured fish of the Chaetodon genus. What riches to our eyes were contained in the canoes of these poor Indians! Broad spreading leaves of Vijao* (* Heliconia bihai.) covered bunches of plantains. The scaly cuirass of an armadillo (Dasypus), the fruit of the Calabash tree (Crescentia cujete), used as a cup by the natives, productions common in the cabinets of Europe, had a peculiar charm for us, because they reminded us that, having reached the torrid zone, we had attained the end to which ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... his rack as the others were doing from theirs. The armor was rude and heavy, used to accustom the body to the weight of the iron plates rather than for any defence. It consisted of a cuirass, or breastplate of iron, opening at the side with hinges, and catching with hooks and eyes; epauliers, or shoulder-plates; arm-plates and leg-pieces; and a bascinet, or open-faced helmet. A great triangular shield covered with leather and studded with bosses of iron, and a heavy broadsword, pointed ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... to do so. Sometimes it would be a case where ignorant and ribald blasphemies would have to be met in the power of the peace of God. Sometimes a really wistful heart would at once betray its presence under the Roman cuirass. Perhaps the man would attack the Apostle with ridicule, or with enquiries, after some long day of religious debate, such as that recorded in Acts xxviii., and the silent night would see St Paul labouring on ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... with a sudden pong, and out there came three ostrich feathers in a gold crown, surrounding a beautiful shining steel helmet, a cuirass, a pair of spurs, finally a complete suit ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... more, madame," said Monte Cristo, "as the Orientals do not confine themselves, as did Mithridates, to make a cuirass of his poisons, but they also made them a dagger. Science becomes, in their hands, not only a defensive weapon, but still more frequently an offensive one; the one serves against all their physical sufferings, the other against all their enemies. ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... next brought forward some delicately wrought mats, and laid upon them the various articles they had brought. A shield, helmet, and a cuirass, all with embossed plates and ornaments of gold; a collar and bracelets of the same metal; sandals and fans; crests of variegated feathers, intermingled with gold and silk thread, sprinkled with pearls and precious stones; imitations ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... her airing on a dappled-gray palfrey, attended by trusty and obsequious grooms; when Sir Knight, followed by his sturdy henchmen, rode forth in gay and gaudy attire, with glittering helmet and cuirass, and entered the lists, and bravely fought for his fair lady's fame. She spoke with fervid eloquence, and with a glibness that betrayed a very recent perusal of the tournament-scene in Ivanhoe. I was about to reply, and say something in behalf of modern chivalry; but just then a gentleman ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... deep violet eyes with a remarkable poise to them."—Here I continued the description for him: "Slight of figure; a full, honest waist, without a suggestion of that execrable death-trap, Dame Fashion's hideous cuirass; a little above middle height; deliberate, and therefore graceful, in all her movements; carries herself in a way to impress one with the idea that she is innocent, without that time-honoured concomitant, ignorance; half girl, half woman; shy, yet strong; and in a word, very beautiful—that's ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... smote asunder / that the sparks began To fly in ruddy showers. / Hawart's gallant man Was by sword of Hagen / wounded all so sore Through shield and shining cuirass, / that whole he ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... lest his royal dignity should be compromised by failure, never repaired to a siege, till it had been reported to him by the most skilful officers in his service, that nothing could prevent the fall of the place. When this was ascertained, the monarch, in his helmet and cuirass, appeared among the tents, held councils of war, dictated the capitulation, received the keys, and then returned to Versailles to hear his flatterers repeat that Turenne had been beaten at Mariendal, that Conde had been forced to raise ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... individual admitted. A handsome face always went through John's cuirass. It was all nonsense, for his wife could not have adored him more openly had he been the twin to Adonis. But, there you are; a man always wants something he can not have. John wasn't satisfied to be one of the most brilliant young ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... the duke into his cuirass, and stood by his person, while the king's bodyguard of Scottish archers "proved themselves good fellows, who never budged from their master's feet and shot arrow upon arrow out into the darkness, ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... they "came Ryottously with the nowmbre of xii persons, with bowis arrowes longe sperys in maner and furme of warre." In another place he details their armour and arms saying that they were arrayed with "Cures (cuirass) Corsettes (armour for the body) Brygendyns, Jakkys, Salettis (a light helmet), Speris, Bowes, Arrowes, Sourdis, byllys and Launcegays, (a small lance) with other maner of wepyns defencive." As Sir Roger and his wife rode towards Scarborough they met "Sir Rauf Ivers, which in Curtes ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... and had fallen beneath him as he fell. The giant had strangled him in his own death-agonies. The younger had nearly hewn off the left leg of his enemy; and, grappled with in the act, had, while they rolled together on the earth, found for his dagger a passage betwixt the gorget and cuirass of the giant, and stabbed him mortally in the throat. The blood from the giant's throat was yet pouring over the hand of his foe, which still grasped the hilt of the dagger sheathed in the wound. They lay silent. I, the least worthy, remained the ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... fallen, the Athenians forthwith pressed upon him; and his horse they took and himself, as he made resistance, they slew, though at first they could not, for his equipment was of this kind,—he wore a cuirass of gold scales underneath, and over the cuirass he had put on a crimson tunic. So as they struck upon the cuirass they could effect nothing, until some one, perceiving what the matter was, thrust into his eye. Then ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... ancient usages of the family. It was something novel, exceptional, extraordinary. Well, this extraordinary creature is recognized with certainty as a Weevil and stored away as such. The glittering cuirass of the Rhynchites goes to take its place beside the grey cloak of the Phynotomus. No, it is not the colour that guides ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... into his eyes at sight of a sabre slash that scarred his cheek. He ran a withered hand down the young fellow's leg and caressed the swelling thew. He smote the broad chest with his knuckles, and pressed and prodded the thick muscle-pads that covered the shoulders like a cuirass. The group had been added to by curious passers-by—husky miners, mountaineers, and frontiersmen, sons of the long-legged and broad-shouldered generations. Imber glanced from one to another, then he spoke ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... stumbling in its pace, as though worn out with fatigue, but he saw that it was a war-horse, and the saddle and other equipments were such as he well remembered in the royal army long ago. The rider wore buff coat, cuirass, gauntlets guarded with steel, sword, and pistols, and Walter's first impulse was to avoid him; but on giving a second glance, he changed his mind, for though there was neither scarf, plume, nor any badge of party, the long locks, the set of the hat, and the general ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... screamed. "This is David and Goliath," and as she spoke she pointed with one hand at Villon while with the other she struck with her open palm a ringing blow on the cuirass of Villon's antagonist. "Let them fight it out with sword and lantern in ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the summit. I said to the monk who accompanied me: "Father, how happy you must be here!" And he replied: "It is very windy, Monsieur"; and so we began to talk while watching the rising tide, which ran over the sand and covered it with a steel cuirass. ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... sleep as others, but let us watch and be sober. [5:7]For they that sleep sleep in the night, and they that are drunk drink in the night; [5:8]but let us who are of day be sober, putting on a cuirass of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation, [5:9]for God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, [5:10] who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we may live together ...
— The New Testament • Various
... hands; but when they came quite near to him, one on each side, and spoke slowly and clearly in their determined way, the tremendous Markos felt his bravery shrink within him till it seemed to rattle like a dry pea shaken in a steel cuirass, and the amount of money he actually advanced on the ring was considerable; he even consented to let Gambardella seal the six jars of Samos wine, which formed part of the loan, with the heavy brass seal ring the Bravo wore, on which was engraved the Bear of the Ursuline Order ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... journalists, which demolished the splendors of the social state," said the Comte de Vandenesse. "In these days every rogue who can hold his head straight in his collar, cover his manly bosom with half an ell of satin by way of a cuirass, display a brow where apocryphal genius gleams under curling locks, and strut in a pair of patent-leather pumps graced by silk socks which cost six francs, screws his eye-glass into one of his ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... were skilled in the forging and hammering of steel.[813] Here it was that, by the King's command, the master armourer made Jeanne a suit of mail.[814] The suit he furnished was of wrought iron; and, according to the custom of that time, consisted of a helmet, a cuirass in four parts, with epaulets, armlets, elbow-pieces, fore-armlets, gauntlets, cuisses, knee-pieces, greaves and shoes.[815] The maker had doubtless no thought of accentuating the feminine figure. But the armour of that period, ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... bald account of one of the greatest Pageants ever celebrated in the City, you must fill it up by imagining the long procession, every one in his place. Trumpeters, bowmen in leather jerkins, men-at-arms in shining helmet and cuirass, horsemen in full armour, knights, nobles, heralds all in full panoply, banners and bannerets, the Bishop and all the clergy, the King and his retinue, the Lord Mayor and his four hundred followers. Imagine the blare of the trumpets, the singing of the chants, the ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... captain, two negroes assisted our heroes to put on their apparel, and clothed them in thick waterproof made of India rubber, which formed trousers and vest, the trousers terminating in a pair of shoes with lead soles; a cuirass of leather protected the chest from the pressure of the water, and allowed ...
— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood
... silver gates lay winged bulls, and the king's body-guard-their dress consisting of a gold cuirass under a purple overcoat, and the high Persian cap, their swords in golden scabbards glittering with jewels, and their lances ornamented with gold and silver apples, were stationed in the court of the palace. Among them the band of the "Immortals" was easily to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Its bulk precluded quickness and agility. It must have been designed to attack and prey upon the ponderous and slow moving Horned and Armored Dinosaurs with which its remains are found, and whose massive cuirass and weapons of defense are well matched with its teeth and claws. The momentum of its huge body involved a seemingly slow and lumbering action, an inertia of its movements, difficult to start and difficult ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew
... Upon this fertile tract, which stretched down to the very brink of the sea, the Hippogrif descended; and his feet no sooner touched the ground than Prince Roger leaped from his back, and made fast his bridle to the stem of a spreading myrtle-bush. Then he took off his helmet and cuirass, and went to bathe his face and hands in the cool waters of the brook; for his pulses were throbbing from his swift ride, and he wanted nothing so much as an hour or two of repose. Such rapid flying through ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... fire their pistols at the Parisians, whilst the Marquis de Noirmoutier went forth with the cavalry of the Fronde to skirmish with them, and returning to the Hotel de Ville, entered the circle of the Duchess de Longueville, followed by his officers, each wearing his cuirass, as he came from the field. The hall was filled with ladies preparing to dance, the troops were drawn up in the square, and this mixture of blue scarves and ladies, cuirasses and violins and trumpets, formed, says De Retz, a ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... from twenty to twenty-five thousand, and the Imperialists about thirty thousand. The king, who suffered from an imperfectly healed wound which he had received in the Polish war, found it painful to wear a cuirass; and on the morning of the day of Lutzen refused to put it on. "God is my armor," he said, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... found him out, and put gifts of food near his cell, he carried them up to the crags above, and, offering them solemnly up to the God who feeds the ravens when they call on him, left them there for the wild birds. He watched, fasted, and scourged himself, and wore always a hair shirt and an iron cuirass. He sat, night after night, even in mid-winter, in the cold Wear, the waters of which had hollowed out a rock near by into a natural bath, and afterwards in a barrel sunk in the floor of a little chapel of wattle, which he built and dedicated to the blessed Virgin Mary. He tilled a scrap of ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... river. They crowded together into a boat which lay at the bank and pushed off from the shore. The boat was overloaded, and it sank as soon as it left the land. The Romans drew the bodies which floated to the shore upon the bank again, and they found among them one, which, by the royal cuirass which was upon it, the customary badge and armor of the Egyptian kings, they knew to ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... hearth, half covered with glasses and bottles, sat two men playing hazard. The dice rang sharply as I entered, and he who had just thrown kept the box over them while he turned, scowling, to see who came in. He was a fair-haired, blonde man, large-framed and florid. He had put off his cuirass and boots, and his doublet showed frayed and stained where the armour had pressed on it. Otherwise he was in the extreme of last year's fashion. His deep cravat, folded over so that the laced ends drooped ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... Donatello by its realism. Verocchio's "David," a lad of some seventeen years, has the lean, veined arms of a stone-hewer or gold-beater. As a faithful portrait of the first Florentine prentice who came to hand, this statue might have merit but for the awkward cuirass and kilt that ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... I've seen you two or three times when you was here years ago," said Mrs. Lowe, standing before her straight and tall in her faded calico gown, which fitted her uncompromisingly like a cuirass. Mrs. Lowe's gowns, no matter how thin and faded, always fitted her in that way. Stretched over her long flat-chested figure, they seemed to acquire the consistency of armor. "You ain't changed any as I can ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... fell silently in large, whirling flakes. Down in the valley it melted off our clothes, but higher up on the open, windy heights it froze to a cake of ice, and before long our clothes on the windward side were converted into a thick cuirass which prevented every movement. At last we were practically frozen fast in the saddle. Our hands were benumbed, the reins fell on the horses' necks, our eyes were sore from the snowstorm which dashed straight into our ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... There is a lady in white satin and a ruff; a gentleman whose legs have faded out of view, with a peaked beard, and a hawk on his wrist. There is another in a black periwig lost in the dark background, and with a steel cuirass, the gleam of which out of the darkness strikes the eye, and a scarf is dimly discoverable across it. This is that foolish Sir Guy Mardykes, who crossed the Border and joined Dundee, and was shot through the ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... It was also called a kettle hat, or pot. Another obsolete name given to a steel cap was a privy pallet, from Fr. palette, a barber's bowl, a "helmet of Mambrino." To a brilliant living monarch we owe the phrase "mailed fist," a translation of Ger. gepanzerte Faust. Panzer, a cuirass, is etymologically a pauncher, or defence for the paunch. We may compare an article of female apparel, which took its name from a more polite name for this part of the anatomy, and which Shakespeare uses even in the sense of Panzer. Imogen, taking the papers ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... grass, let him pluck it, but without breaking ranks, without dropping out of the squadron of which the leader must always keep his eyes on the flaming sonorous star. But if he put the little flower in the strap above his cuirass, not to look at it himself, but for others to look at, away with him! Let him go with his flower in his buttonhole and dance ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... other at Fornovo. The odds against the French were six to one, and the fight was long and bloody. When the great victory was at last decided, Bayard was among the first of those called up before the king. That day two horses had dropped dead beneath him; his cuirass and sword were hacked and battered, and a captured standard, blazing with the arms of Naples, was in his hand. At the king's order he knelt down, and received upon the spot the rank of knight. At one bound he had achieved the height of glory—to ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... of the episcopal revenue 1,500 poor should be feasted on the day of the conversion of St. Paul, and 1,500 lights offered in the church. The country was filled with Italian prelates. An Italian Archbishop of Canterbury, coming to St. Paul's, with a cuirass under his robes, to demand first-fruits from the Bishop, found the doors closed in his face; and two canons of the Papal party, endeavouring to install themselves at St. Paul's, were in 1259 ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... large ant, nearly six lines in length, very black, very shining, doubtless a Hercules who was defending himself against a whole army. His enemies fastened themselves on to each of his legs, but he still fought; a brown ant jumped upon his back and tried to break his brilliant cuirass; another, with his body bent double, covered him with poison. The Hercules still fought. At last, three of the fiercest of the ants worked with their sharp teeth upon the middle of his body, and at last cut him in two. The terrible ...
— Piccolissima • Eliza Lee Follen
... originally made of leather or skin, strengthened and adorned by bronze or gold, and surmounted by a crest which was often of horse-hair, and so made as to give an imposing look The crest not only served for ornament but to distinguish the different centurions. The breastplate or cuirass was generally made of metal, and sometimes was highly ornamented. Chain-mail was also used. The greaves were of bronze or brass, with a lining of leather or felt, and reached above the knees. The shield, worn by the heavy-armed infantry, ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... of their parrot-feathered arrows. Over the mould, swarming among the venomous fruit, innumerable crabs make a sound almost like the murmuring of water. Some are very large, with prodigious stalked eyes, and claws white as ivory, and a red cuirass; others, very small and very swift in their movements, are raspberry-colored; others, again, are apple-green, with queer mottlings of black and white. There is an unpleasant odor of decay in ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... violence were rapidly effaced. The pyramids could take care of themselves. They had seen the plains at their feet covered again and again with hordes of barbarians, and yet had lost not an inch of their height or a stone of their polished cuirass. Even in the temples the setting up of a few fallen columns, the reworking of a few bas-reliefs, the restoration of a painting here and there, was all that was necessary to bring back ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... shock: the French mitraille played mercilessly on the ranks; but the chasms were filled up like magic, and in vain the bold horsemen of Gaul galloped round the bristling files. At length the word "fire!" was heard within the square, and as the bullets at pistol range rattled upon them, the cuirass afforded them no defence against the deadly volley. Men and horses rolled indiscriminately upon the earth: then would come a charge of our dashing squadrons, who, riding recklessly upon the foe, were, in their turn, to be repulsed ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... lesser idols, began to grow an eyesore in the scanty studio of my friend. Dijon and I have sat by the hour, and gazed upon that company of images. The severe, the frisky, the classical, the Louis Quinze, were there—from Joan of Arc in her soldierly cuirass to Leda with the swan; nay, and God forgive me for a man that knew better! the humorous was represented also. We sat and gazed, I say; we criticised, we turned them hither and thither; even upon the closest inspection they looked quite like statuettes; and ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... all the qualities of her soul and mind, tenderness, courage, delicacy, pride, modesty, gave her face at the same time an expression so varied, so winning in all its moods, that the grave, sombre assembly of judges let fall the brazen cuirass of impassive integrity and the leaden cope of hypocritical virtue. If Edmee had not triumphantly defended me by her confession, she had at least roused the greatest interest in my favour. A man who is loved by ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... represented as Bellona. Two Loves were presenting her, one with his helm adorned with martial plumes, the other with his buckler of gold, with the Orleans-Montpensier arms. The laurel crown, with which Triumphs were ornamenting her head, and the scaled cuirass of Pallas completed her decoration. M. le Duc du Maine praised, without affectation, the intelligence of the artist; and as for the figure and the likeness, he said to the Princess: "You are good, but you are better." ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... sending his troops to the camp at Chobham by way of getting them acclimatized to the trials and vicissitudes of wind and weather. This step leads of course to a number of little pleasantries. In one cartoon we see an officer of household cavalry parting his hair in front of his cuirass, whilst a soldier servant brings him his shaving water in a bucket; another, entitled A Cold in the Head, represents an officer in this melancholy condition, who requests his servant to bring him his bucket of ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... was over Esmond entered the room, where he knew several of the gentlemen present, and there sat my young lord, having taken off his cuirass, his waistcoat open, his face flushed, his long yellow hair hanging over his shoulders, drinking with the rest; the youngest, gayest, handsomest there. As soon as he saw Esmond, he clapped down his glass, and running towards his friend, put both his arms round him and embraced ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... knights, a puny race In stays, with locks en papillote, While cuirass, cuisses, greaves give place To silk-net Tights, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various
... that which she has given it. To endeavor to render it more elegant by artificial means is to change it; to make it much smaller below and much larger above is to destroy its beauty; to keep it cased up in a kind of domestic cuirass is not only to deform it, but to expose the internal parts to serious injury. Under such compression as is commonly practiced by ladies, the {105} development of the bones, which are still tender, does not take place conformably to the intention of nature, because nutrition is ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... years to teach the general officers of the European armies, that men could fight without spatterdashes, that hair-powder was not heroism, and that long tails were only an imitation of the monkey; that muskets did not fire the worse for having brown barrels, and that the cuirass was a better defence for the body of the dragoon than a cloth waistcoat, however covered with embroidery. But why shall not improvement go a little farther? Why shall not the arm of the dragoon be a little protected ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... on the staircase leading to the garden, and had fallen senseless into the flames, which, fortunately, had been unable to get through his coat of cloth of gold and the decorations which covered him like a cuirass; nevertheless, it was many months before he recovered. "Prince Joseph de Schwarzenberg," says the Moniteur of July 3, 1810, "spent the night in looking for his wife, whom he could not find at the Embassy or at Madame ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... two incidents connected with the Mole of Puteoli afford! The Roman Emperor, glittering like the morning star in purple mantle and jewelled cuirass, riding on his charger across the solid road that to humour his own caprice had been flung across the buoyant waters, accompanied by soldiery, by music, and by bands of wealthy sycophants; and the Apostle, poor, in bonds, ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... rode, sunk in sad thought, his fingers twisted in his long white beard which flowed over his cuirass, his eyes filled with tears. Behind him galloped his knights—strong men though they were, every one of them with a sob in his throat, a prayer in his heart, for Roland, Roland the brave ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... questionable authority, that Catiline had made a plot to assassinate him while holding the elections, and he made a considerable parade of taking precautions for his safety—letting it be seen that he wore a cuirass under his toga, and causing his house to be guarded by the younger members of his party. The elections, according to Plutarch, had at least been once postponed from the ordinary time in July, though this has been denied.[7] ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... its salon when in came the Prince. He was in a terrible state, and dropped into a chair out of breath before he could speak. His face was all over dust, his hair tangled, his collar and shirt bloody, his cuirass dinted all over with blows, and he held his bloody sword in his hand, ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... maid, 'Twas she brought much mishap to pass; She sly removed the sword approved Of Hafbur, and the new cuirass. ...
— Hafbur and Signe - a ballad • Thomas J. Wise
... said the man, changing the steel headpiece for a cuirass. "There won't be no trouble. First time your father gets a sight of the mob of tailors, and shoemakers, and tinkers, with an old patch-work counterpane atop of a clothes-prop for their flag, he'll ride along the front of his ridgement of ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... with himself Lord Ruthven, an idle and dissolute sybarite, who under the circumstances promised to push his devotion so far as to wear a cuirass; then, sure of this important accomplice, he busied himself with finding ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... is so poetical, so witty, so charming. He has but one fault, that of being a civilized Don Quixote de la Mancha; instead of the helmet of Mambrino he wears a Gibus hat, a Buisson coat instead of a cuirass, a Verdier cane by way of a lance. Happy nature! in which the heart is not sacrificed to the intellect; where the subtlety of a diplomate is united to the ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... savages, not only by his fearlessness and great physical strength, but by the power of his eye and his dignity of mien. They soon learned to stand in awe of his long musket and unerring skill as a marksman. He had brought with him from England a suit of mail, helmet and cuirass such as were worn by the soldiers of Cromwell. Clothed with these, his stately figure seemed to the sons of the forest something almost supernatural. One day some Indians, having taken away a horse of his, he put on his armor, pursued them alone, and soon overtook them. The chief of the party ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... of Ballybarry. There was a carrousel, or tournament, held at this period, in imitation of the antique meetings of chivalry, in which the chevaliers tilted at each other, or at the ring; and on this occasion I was habited in a splendid Roman dress (viz., a silver helmet, a flowing periwig, a cuirass of gilt leather richly embroidered, a light blue velvet mantle, and crimson morocco half-boots): and in this habit I rode my bay horse Brian, carried off three rings, and won the prize over all the Duke's gentry, and the nobility of surrounding countries who had come to the show. A wreath ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... assailing them. The soldiers swarmed up from the river to resume their clothes; and here you could behold depicted by the master's godlike hands one hurrying to clasp his limbs in steel and give assistance to his comrades, another buckling on the cuirass, and many seizing this or that weapon, with cavalry in squadrons giving the attack. Among the multitude of figures, there was an old man, who wore upon his head an ivy wreath for shade. Seated on the ground, in act to draw his hose up, he was hampered by the wetness of his legs; and ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... Philip mentally designated as benches, with deep cushion seats of greenish leather, were arranged about the table. These same curious seats furnished other parts of the room. From the pictures on the walls to the ancient helmet and cuirass that stood up like a legless sentinel in one corner, this room, like the others, breathed of extreme age. Over a big open fireplace, in which half a dozen birch logs were burning, hung a number of old-fashioned weapons; a flintlock, a pair of obsolete French ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... first outbreak. Men, rushing past him, had torn the toga from his back. The hands which had clung upon him now held his wrist with a grip immovable. Doors fell and lights were flashing in. He saw now, on every side, a gleam of helmet and cuirass. Men, retreating from the lights, huddled in a dark corner. Some began to weep and cry to God. The scene was awful with swiftness and terror. The crowding group moved like caving sand. It sank suddenly, ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... against the Spaniards in the Netherlands, and after his return had been made a captain in the Lifeguards, and a Gentleman of the Bedchamber. Vandyke has left portraits of the father and the son; the one a bald-headed, alert, precise-looking old warrior, with the cuirass and gauntlets of elder warfare; the other, the very model of a cavalier, tall, easy, and graceful, with a gentle reflecting face, and wearing the long lovelocks and deep point lace collar and cuffs characteristic ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Happily Frank was not asked either of these questions. He and Andrew (who, in a tattered cloak and with a pair of brogues on his feet, looked like a Highland scarecrow) were soon perceived by the sentries and conducted to the presence of the commanding officer, evidently a man of rank, in a steel cuirass, crossed by the ribband of the Thistle, to whom the others seemed to pay great deference. This proved to be no other than his Grace the Duke of Montrose, who in person had come to conduct the operations ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... which is superadded to these means of defence consists of five principal pieces, viz., a casque or cap, with a mask large enough to leave a proper space between it and the asbestos cap; a cuirass with its brassets; a piece of armour for the trunk and thighs; a pair of boots of double wire-gauze; and an oval shield 5 feet long by 2 1/2 feet wide, made by stretching the wire-gauze over a slender frame of iron. All these pieces are made of iron wire-gauze, having ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... itself, its waters stretch out joyous and splendid; the rising sun pours upon its breast a long streamlet of gold; the breeze covers it with scales; its eddies stretch themselves, and tremble like an awaking serpent, and, when the billow heaves them, you seem to see the striped flanks, the tawny cuirass of a leviathan. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... renowned knight was a tall, gaunt man, whose iron frame sixty winters had not bowed. There were the young heirs of Latimer and Fitzhugh, in gay gilded armour and scarlet mantelines; and there, in a plain cuirass, trebly welded, and of immense weight, but the lower limbs left free and unincumbered in thick leathern hose, stood Robin of Redesdale. Other captains there were, whom different motives had led to the common confederacy. There might be seen the secret Lollard, hating either Rose, stern ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Luxembourg. And at Arlon she was in October 1436, as the town accounts of Orleans have proved. Thence, says the Metz chronicle, the 'Comte de Warnonbourg'(?) took her to Cologne, and gave her a cuirass. Thence she returned to Arlon in Luxembourg, and there married the knight Robert des Hermoises, or Armoises, 'and they dwelt in their own house at Metz, as long as they would.' Thus Jeanne became 'Madame des Hermoises,' or 'Ermaises,' or, ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... go back where she had come from. But the sight of the giant in the doorway held her in a spell. He seemed to be lost in revery. He stood gazing out upon the moon-washed landscape, his head tilted slightly forward, his chin propped on his hand. How his golden cuirass gleamed in the moonlight! Something in the way he stood there ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... in the authorized version of the Bible, 'And a target' or gorget 'of brass,' are rendered, in all the earlier versions, 'And a shield of brass.' Perhaps a cuirass; it was evidently defensive brass armour, worn ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... a soldier. The double-barred doors of iron, the lofty, protected windows, the military pictures on the walls of his home—all spoke to the Chaviniac child of warfare and conflict. There was the portrait of his father in cuirass and helmet. There were far-away ancestors in glistening armor and laced jackets. There was also the military portrait of that Gilbert Motier de Lafayette who was marshal in the time of Charles VII, and whose motto "Cur non" (Why not?) was chosen ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow
... carpets over which had passed many generations, covered all the compartments. Showy curtains, not finding a vacant frame in the salons, adorned the doors leading into the kitchen. The wall mouldings gradually disappeared under an overlay of pictures, placed close together like the scales of a cuirass. Who now could accuse Desnoyers of avarice? . . . He was investing far more than a fashionable contractor would have ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... last vedettes and hoped that I was a free man again, when there was a soft thudding in the snow behind me, and a heavy man upon a great black horse came swiftly after me. My first impulse was to put spurs to Violette. My second, as I saw a long black beard against a steel cuirass, was to ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the challenge with the greatest confidence. He never doubted but that, armed as he was, with a helmet, a cuirass, and brassarts, he would obtain an easy victory over a champion in a cap and nightgown. Zadig drew his sword, saluting the queen, who looked at him with a mixture of fear and joy. Itobad drew his without saluting anyone. He rushed upon Zadig, like a man who had nothing to fear; he was ready ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... Hercules then asked whether he might lead away the dog of Hades he did not longer oppose him. But he imposed the condition that Hercules should become master of Cerberus without using any weapons. So the hero set out, protected only with cuirass and the lion skin. ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... into him, and the iron alone remained in the wounds. Each time that he appeared the firing recommenced, and fresh lances were plunged into his enormous body. Perceiving, however, how ineffectual firearms were to pierce his cuirass of invulnerable scales, I excited him by my shouts and gestures, and when he came to the edge of the water, opening his enormous jaws all ready to devour me, I approached the muzzle of my gun to within a few ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... sword and cuirass and led out the royal army to the support of the Duke of Mantua, a French nobleman who had inherited an Italian duchy and found his rights disputed by both Spain and Savoy. Louis XIII accompanied Richelieu and showed himself a brave soldier. ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... hall, where, as the sacred and central object, hung the breastplate Sir George Warner wore when he fell at Hopton Heath, dinted by sword and pike, as the enemy's horse rode him down in the melee. His orange scarf, soiled and torn, was looped across the steel cuirass. Papillon admired everything, most of all the great cool dairy, which had once been a chapel, and where the piscina was converted to a niche for a polished brass milk-can, to the horror of Angela, who could say no word in praise of a place that had been created by the ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... frock coat buttoned up to his chin, a bald head with a few grey hairs, and long, thin mustachios like a mandarin's. "An Englishman, I believe; pray, sir, will you inform me whether the household troops in England wear the Marboeuf cuirass?" ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... her in the dining-room, where a coke fire was burning in the stove. In the lamplight army revolvers and sabres with golden tassels on the sword-knots gleamed upon the wall. They were hung about a woman's cuirass, which was provided with round breast-shields of tin-plate; a piece of armour which Felicie had worn last winter, while still a pupil at the Conservatoire, when taking the part of Joan of Arc at the house of a spiritualistic duchess. ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... scenery became very picturesque as we raced over the glistening surface, which flashed like a burnished cuirass beneath the rays of the rising sun. Now we approach a spot where seemingly the waters from some violent blast or other had been in a state of foam and commotion, when a stern frost transformed them into a solid mass. Pillars and ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... dense. Suddenly a trumpet blared. At the gate was Pontius Pilate. On his head was a high and dazzling helmet. His tunic was short, open at the neck. His legs were bare. He was shod with shoes that left the toes exposed. From his cuirass a gorgon's head had, in deference to local prejudice, been effaced; in its stead were scrolls and thunderbolts. From the belt rows of straps, embroidered and fringed, fell nearly to the knee. He held his head in the air. His features were excellent, and his beard hung in rows ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus |
